Oscar 2014 - Sound Editing & Mixing

Ok .. We're getting to more complicated stuff. As usual, I guess here's a bit confusing what gets into editing and what into mixing. And again, I guess I should re-re-rewrite the description of apples, pears and why both are fruits. But I'm awfully lazy at the moment, so I'll go for a link that explains quite nicely the background of the sound in a movie: Film editing stages - Sound . I guess that still doesn't clarify the Oscars separation though, but at least lets me skip some definitions :). So .. the work on ADR, dialogue, effects and the foley part as far as I know gets (mainly) into editing. The location mixing or live recordings & the re-recording mixing or the final track gets (mainly) into .. guess what, mixing. "Mainly" means that the line between one and the other is quite thin. In rough lines, everything starts with the recordings during filming (= mixing department), it goes to editing that sound and adding effects (= editing department) and ends with mixing & tuning the final track (= mixing department again). Obviously, in all this flow there's enough interaction between the various stages. Well, it seems I sort of re-explained it again after all ... Let's get to the nominations, where thanks again to the very comprehensive clips from Soundworks Collection I can write less, and leave more experienced people to talk more ;)

"All is Lost" is nominated only on sound editing. What we have here is a movie about a guy stranded in the middle of the Indian Ocean after his yacht hits a .. drifting container, probably lost by a cargo ship. It's a sort of "Life of Pi", but with a stronger sense of reality. The movie stars only one actor (Robert Redford). Consequence 1: the dialogue (or monologue) is minimal. Consequence 2: the sound (what's beside the dialogue) has a major impact in the movie. I can even say that it could be considered as the second actor. It's so nicely worked out, and it contributes a lot to the sensation of isolation and pressure that doesn't predict anything good, from the cracks in the damaged boat to the far thunders forecasting a storm, and many more. As personal choice I would pick this for sound editing, and if "Gravity" loses at any of the two categories I hope it's this one and "All is Lost" will be the reason.

"Captain Phillips" is another movie set in the Indian Ocean, but on a bigger boat. Which is attacked by Somali pirates. Which results in gunshots. Which results further in nominations on both of the sound categories. I wasn't very impressed, and on the mixing side I don't think the movie has much chance. On the editing I can notice a tendency of the Academy to get easily convinced by the bullets swish (e.g., "The Hurt Locker" or "Zero Dark Thirty"). But even for this "quality" we have another contender that might fit even better the profile ...

"Gravity" has the strongest chances to nail the Oscars on both sound categories. On editing we have plenty of effects and ADR to get the job done ( "there is no sound in space" :) remember ? and not a very decent one in the studio mics either when Sandra Bullock panics with an astronaut helmet on ;) ). And even if on editing maybe we can get a surprise, I find hard to believe that "Gravity" can lose the Oscar on mixing. The final track for me is the best part in this movie after VFX. I didn't watch it in a cinema with Dolby Atmos (one of the latest surround environments) for which was done as I got from the clip, but in a normal hall I can say that it already sounds far more than ok.

"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" is probably the "fill up" nomination for both sound sections. Obviously, it's not bad. However, on editing, besides Smaug's voice I didn't notice much, and for the final impression on mixing the credit goes more to Howard Shore's score than anything else, so ...

"Inside Llewyn Davis" is the latest movie by the Coen brothers, following a week in the life of a folk singer from the '60s. One without a home, dropping from a friend's house to another, and getting in conflict with most of them = the result is a sort of "surreal life" passage, but a bit lighter than other Coen films as "Barton Fink", "The Man Who Wasn't There" or even "A Serious Man". Folk music is quite far from what I listen, but I really liked the mixing, for which the movie got the nomination. If I would remove "Gravity" from the category, this one would clearly stand as the option of choice. In particular, we have a sequence at some point, somewhere on a highway, during night. You can feel the winter .. and 50% of that is caused by the sound mix. About the rest, we'll talk when we get to cinematography ;)

"Lone Survivor" closes the series of nominations both on editing and mixing. Neither one, nor the other impressed my ears, and I don't see much chance of winning any of them. But still, we have again lots of bullets swishing by the voters ears, in a movie which tells the real story of a war mission failed in Afghanistan, so who knows ... In any case, it's the only movie for which I couldn't find (or maybe I didn't have the patience to look enough) a decently conclusive clip. Even for the trailer, I had to get to the 2nd version to have something a bit more close to the current entry topic, given what you can hear from the movie track ...